


and they walked on towards the morning

by perennials



Series: a matter of infinite hope [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Royalty, KRTSK Fluff Week 2018, M/M, why is there no tag for medieval royalty. thanks mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 21:52:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17067806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennials/pseuds/perennials
Summary: Silently, silently, Kei marvels.





	and they walked on towards the morning

**Author's Note:**

> WEEK; prompt
> 
> sunset + sunrise

For someone who just got utterly  _ destroyed  _ in public by the Knights’ Association for disrupting sparring practice again, Kuroo looks awfully smug today.

 

Kei places his quill carefully back in its holder and stands up, facing the window outside his room. “What in God’s name are you doing here?”

 

Kuroo frowns, feigning hurt. “Why, that’s not very prince-like of you.”

 

“No one said I have to be prince-like around you,” Kei grumbles, picking absently at the embroidered seams of his robes. “Ugh, whatever— just— get inside. You’re going to get arrested by the guards again.”

 

Kuroo Tetsurou, eighteen years old and Wildcat of the South, Knight in training, and childhood friend of the second prince of Klow, flashes him a crooked smile as he hops off the balcony railing and slinks into the light.

 

“Well, that would be terribly unpleasant,” he says agreeably.

 

Kei steps on the toe of his boot, grinds his heel down as hard as he can.

 

“Yes, the absolute worst.”

  
  


::

  
  


For someone who just got utterly  _ destroyed  _ in public by the Knights’ Association for disrupting sparring practice again, all because Kei walked by in ceremonial robes and he couldn’t keep his eyes off him, Kuroo looks awfully happy to be alive. Lounging against the silver splay of pillows on the bed, he flicks an olive into the air and catches it on his tongue, looking all pleased with himself. Kei watches his culinary acrobatics with keen disinterest.

 

His room is in the furthest-off wing of the castle, making it hard to access by law-conforming means, and easy to sneak into from the back if you don’t care for such matters. His room is in the furthest-off wing of the castle, which is both terribly convenient and inconvenient, depending on who you ask. Kei’s been asking around for years.

 

And he and Kuroo have been doing  _ this  _ for years, since Kei was old enough to lift the latch on the balcony door himself. Always the same old path up the old oak tree, always the same old boy sliding off the railing like a pastel-colored daydream. Same boy, same eyes, different hours of the day. Same boy, same old pain in the left side of Kei’s chest.

 

See, Kuroo is good at climbing trees and holding his breath, and Kei is good at keeping secrets, so it’s perfect.

 

Kuroo is scared to death of himself sometimes, and Kei has a born dislike of dark, enclosed spaces, so it’s perfect.

 

Anyway, the door leading to the balcony is accompanied on either side by sprawling windows. Today the evening spills through in scintillating shades of orange, red, and violet. Cresting the jagged line of trees outside, the sun fits perfectly into the small window carved in above the doorway. Kuroo finishes his olives.

 

“So. What do you want from me today.” Kei settles down beside him, savoring the easy give of the pillows at his back.

 

Looking at his now-empty palms, Kuroo lets out a fall leaf wisp of a sigh. He brightens up as he opens his mouth to speak, leaning forward slightly. “I don’t want anything  _ from  _ you, I want to take you somewhere.”

 

A pause.

 

“You know, Kuroo.” Kei studies the thin golden circlet on his wrist. “They’re holding the royal celebrations tomorrow.”

 

“Oh. When do they start?”

 

“The attendants will be here by eight.”

 

“Perfect!” Kuroo claps his olive-stained hands together. “I’ll come get you at six.”

 

Kei stares at him. “I didn’t say I would go.”

 

“Well, I mean— do you want to?”

 

“I—” Kei stops halfway, shuts his mouth, and lapses abruptly into silence. He nestles his chin in his palm, watching Kuroo curiously out of the corner of his eye.

 

If Kei didn’t know any better, he would say Kuroo looked confident. Limned in the elaborate ball gown of dusk’s embrace, the light catches on his fools’ gold irises, his jewel-cut cheekbones, the small metal hoop in his left earlobe. His flyaway hair is swept messily over one eye, tucked behind his ear beside the other. His smile is made of quicksilver.

 

But Kei does know better; Kei knows too much. He knows how Kuroo whined and begged the palace guardians to let him get his ear pierced, and then emerged afterwards with red-rimmed eyes, clutching hard at the fabric of his tunic. He knows that Kuroo runs his hand through his hair to hide the nervous tremor in them. He knows that Kuroo smiles hardest when he’s backed into a corner. When he’s out of options.

 

Kei doesn’t want him to think he’s out of options now, because he isn’t. He reaches out with his free hand, prods Kuroo in the chest.

 

“If I fall asleep during the  _ official celebrations  _ tomorrow and they ask, I’m going to tell them it was your fault.”

 

With one final yawn, the sun falls out of the picture-frame of the window and snatches away the gold of Kuroo’s eyes with it. But his smile stays, and it’s a beautiful, fleeting thing. Like the clumsy swing of a child’s first sword making a ragged cut through the air; wobbly, uncertain, dreamlike.

 

“Sure,” Kuroo says.

 

He looks good like this, Kei thinks. He looks good.

  
  


::

  
  


A comprehensive list of things happening tomorrow:

 

One. Kei’s seventeenth birthday.

 

Two. The official celebrations for that, which will be loud and elaborate and plenty obnoxious, and involve at least some form of public interaction. No doubt he will be required to don a set of heavily jeweled robes, of the sort that weighs something like three hundred pounds. No doubt he will be dead on his feet before noon.

 

Three. Whatever Kuroo has planned for before that.

 

He promises to return Kei to his room by eight o’clock sharp, earnest in that casual, offhand way of his. But to be entirely honest, Kei doesn’t really care if he keeps his word. He’s more curious about  _ six o’clock,  _ the earthquake in Kuroo’s hands, the cryptic edge to his smile.

 

Either way, it’s going to be one hell of a day, prince-like language be damned.

  
  


::

  
  


Kuroo arrives before the first birdsong pierces the early morning chill, with a loose belt and an untucked tunic, a pearl of cheeky laughter balanced on the tip of his tongue. He holds out his hand through the darkness.

 

“Shall we go?”

 

Kei takes it before his head can get an edge over his heart, which is a weak, momentary thing, and lets himself get pulled over the side.

 

Then they’re falling down, down, down, and Kuroo’s flying before Kei’s feet have even hit the ground. Kuroo leads him through the city spread out around the castle in concentric circles, winding through sleep-soft streets and past buildings kissed with ivy, and Kei follows. Kuroo flies fast like he’s made of nothing but wind and sky and laughter. Silently, silently, Kei marvels.

 

“You look especially dashing today,” Kuroo comments a while later, ducking into an alleyway that smells suspiciously like fish. The sky is beginning to lighten, the deep cerulean blue of night falling away at the edges to reveal thick swathes of purple. Around them, the city stretches its arms languidly, still bleary-eyed, still young.

 

“I hate you,” Kei manages to bite out, just a little short of breathless.

 

They emerge at the end of the alley to a wider street, lined with carts covered with cloth and cobblestone paths. “Ruthless as always, I see.”

 

“Not like it matters to you.”

 

Kuroo hums to himself. “Well, I’d love to say more on the topic, but I’m afraid we’ve reached our destination.”

 

He gestures grandly upwards.

 

“The foot of it, anyway.”

  
  


::

  
  


It’s the old clock tower.  _ Of course  _ it’s the old clock tower. How did Kei not think of the old clock tower?

 

Really, he’s been losing his touch of late. For all of Kuroo’s spontaneity and bizarreness, for every bad hiccup in his otherwise smooth demeanor, he’s always harbored a burning love for the classics. 

 

Think of it this way. Here is the tallest vantage point in the city, here is the sprawling maze of buildings, and here is the shimmering shape of the sun, just beginning to peek above the horizon. Here is the morning as it emerges into itself, draped in the secrets of last night and the adventures of today.

 

Of course Kuroo would think of this; only Kuroo would think of this. Only Kuroo knows enough about monsters, and myths, and magic.

 

And it  _ is _ magical. All the way up here, everything looks a little unreal. Even the blurry gold disc of the sun, even the jigsaw puzzle of the city beneath them, even the smoky silhouette of Kuroo beside him, cut from the same kind of fabric that they make daydreams out of.

 

“It’s really something, isn’t it?” Kuroo laughs, runs a hand through his hair, straightens his back. 

 

“It’s not much, but— happy seventeenth birthday, Tsukki.”

 

He keeps his face angled forward, showing Kei nothing more than half a shy smile, half a piece of heartache. He keeps his face angled forward, and it pisses Kei off somehow. This is the boy who cried when he got his ear pierced and cried when he fell off the old oak tree for the first time, but held his breath when his parents were stolen away in the night and he was left with red footprints in the doorway. This is the boy with the fools’ gold irises and the quicksilver smile, the flyaway hair as black as quill’s ink. This is the boy who’s scared to death of himself sometimes.

 

Same boy, same eyes, different hours. Different places. Same boy, same old pain in the left side of Kei’s chest, different story.

 

He thinks about it. Kei thinks about it, and then he grabs Kuroo’s wrist and pulls him forward.

 

“Kuroo Tetsurou,” he announces, and no one’s allowed to fault him if his voice is a little shaky, a little weak around the corners. “You are hereby under arrest for kidnapping and coercion, and for showing me the most breathtaking sight I have witnessed in all my years on this earth.”

 

Kei places his palm on Kuroo’s cheek. Almost instinctively, Kuroo turns into the touch; it’s barely noticeable, barely there, but Kei catches it. That’s the point, that Kei notices, that Kei catches it.

 

So he catches it.

 

“Oh?” Kuroo replies helplessly. “What shall my punishment be?”

 

Kei swallows. “You will be my silent support throughout the official celebrations later. _All_ of them.”

 

Kuroo’s eyes have gone all soft, like moonlight falling across still waters, or freshly baked bread giving under the press of a child’s hand. Kuroo’s eyes are doing all sorts of things to Kei’s heart. It’s only a little bit scary.

 

"You are quite the selfish prince," Kuroo murmurs.  


 

Kei scowls. “Shut up.”  


 

“Make me.”

 

And now he's grinning all crooked, all bright and shiny and new like it’s the first day of his life, Kuroo’s tunic is untucked and the top button left wide open, but he looks good like this, he looks good like this, he looks beautiful. He looks so beautiful it hurts.

 

So Kei kisses him.

 

Beneath them, the city yawns to life, carrying creaky-limbed store owners and children with pitter-pattering footsteps towards the crossroads of life. Beyond that, the castle is already rumbling with the sounds of anticipation, whispers traveling from one end to the other of  _ the second prince’s birthday, the second prince’s birthday, we need to get ready for the second prince’s birthday. _

 

Later on there will be heavily jeweled robes that weigh at least three hundred pounds, trumpets and gold confetti, and other loud, obnoxious things. Later on, Kei will probably return to his room a handful of minutes after eight o’clock because he will not be able to walk straight, not with the memory of Kuroo’s lips still burning wildfire-bright in his mind. Later on, he will think of the way the sad story melted off Kuroo’s face for one fragile, fleeting breath of a second, and the image will stay with him for years, and years, and years.

 

Right here, right now, Kei kisses him, and the world falls away.

  
  


::

  
  


See, Kuroo is good at climbing trees and holding his breath, and Kei is good at keeping secrets, but they are both terrible at being human.

 

See, Kuroo is good at ignoring things, and Kei is good at looking away, but they are both absolutely, wonderfully terrible at falling in love.

 

So it’s perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nikiforcvs)
> 
> i'm going to malaysia tomorrow and i need to be up at 7:30 so honestly i have no idea what the hell i'm doing out here, but here's another funny thing. i was like. i want kuroo to climb into a window. das the shit. so i made him climb into a window. also apparently in the middle ages most windows were just holes in a wall so that's a fun bit of trivia for you  
> i don't think i'll be able to write for day 4 as i will be off wandering around looking for crepes and shit, so here's day 3.  
> thank you for reading up until here, you're an absolute fucking star. as always, all kudos, comments, and bookmarks are appreciated from the bottom of the Bottom of my heart
> 
> have a good one


End file.
